14 



they were holding some three-quarters of an inch from the ground, appa- 

 rently for the purpose of drying, as the weather had been wet for several 

 days, and the morning was dark and lowery, the sun appearing only at long 

 intervals, with a strong wind blowing. On removing the hands, the ants 

 again closed over the cluster of eggs (which was about the size of the last 

 joint of the thumb) and the continual changing of their places by the little 

 creatures gave the mass an appearance of ebullition. I dropped upon the cen- 

 tre of this mass a large species of ant, of a light yellow color, belonging to a 

 different i/enus, which I had taken from beneath a stone near the spot. It 

 was pounced upon in an instant by some dozen or more of the black species, 

 but made no resistance, simply folding its feet and waving its antennae slowly 

 in a manner which it required no stretch of the imagination to interpret as 

 deprecatory, as who should say, " 1 humbly beg pardon for intruding ; 'twas 

 no fault of mine ; accident, or a stronger will than mine placed me here, and 

 if you will allow me to depart, I will gladly do so, and trouble you no more.'' 

 As if in answer to this or a kindred appeal, it was released, and passed out 

 over the bodies of the blacks until it reached a large stone just touching the 

 mass on which were a few scattered blacks, like an outpost of the main body. 

 Here it was again seized and somewhat roughly handled by four or five of 

 these sentinels, but a repetition of its passive protest secured once more its 

 freedom, and it disappeared from sight in the grass. Another insect, the 

 Simulium. molestum, or " Black-fly " of our northern forests, happening to 

 alight upon my hand, was then dropped among them. He was seized upon 

 and torn limb from limb in a few seconds, his mangled remains filtering 

 down through the mass to the earth. Again and again the experiment was 

 tried with the yellow species of ant, and invariably with the same result ; 

 they were always allowed to pass away without injury, xipon examination, 

 although as quickly seized at first as the unfortunate " Black-fly." A spi- 

 der, two^gnats, and a small plant-bug were then successively dropped into 

 the seething mass, and as thoi'oughly dismembered and demolished as the 

 first victim. These experiments occupied nearly two hours, during which 

 my eyes were so close to the theatre of action that scarcely a motion of the 

 prisoners or their assailants escaped me, and I was fully convinced that the 

 language of the antennae, while it may be understood among allied species 

 and genera, has its limits, and that insects of different orders bear some such 

 relations to each other as do human beings of different nationalities. 



Capt. N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown, gave the following account of the 

 Cramp fish, Torpedo ocddentalis Storer. 



This very remarkable fish was quite plenty at Provincetown, Cape Cod, 

 some fifty years ago. From the 20th of September, and during October, No- 

 vember, and early December, they would run on shore during the night and 

 would be left dry on the sandy beach by the receding tide. They were not 

 seen at any other time of the year, and probably remain in deep water during 

 the rest of the year. I have not known of their having been seen south of Gay 

 Head, Martha's Vineyard, or north of Minot's Ledge (Cohasset). I know of 



